The Battle of the Super-Soakers

The vampires had risen, far more of them than anyone had contemplated. The Slayer and her friends, fellow warriors by now, had a fairly secure position. But there were a lot of the undead coming. The stock of arrows and crossbow bolts was running low. The experimental ammunition, with african blackwood rods swaged into lead bullets, worked, but the supply was also low.

The Sun had dropped below the horizon. The vampires weren’t bothering to wait for full dark, they were massing in a field a half-mile away. There were too many of them.

One of the Scooby Brigade said, more to himself: “We need a miracle about now.”

The Slayer said: “Listen.”

They could all hear it. It was the roar of very large piston engines.

“What the fuck,” someone else muttered.

They saw a large twin-engined airplane, a flying boat. It was painted orange and red and it was flying low. It was flying towards the vampires from the north.

The Slayer said: “Watch.”

The airplane came right over the vampires and dumped 1,400 gallons of water in a swath right across the assembled horde. The vampires began bursting into flame and shrieking. Another water-bomber came roaring in and sprayed the leading edge of the horde. The skies were lit up with the flames of burning vampires and the air was filled with their shrieks.

“Holy water,” the Slayer said.

The first airplane descended and touched down on a nearby reservoir, scooping up another load of water. Inside the airplane, at the top of the water tank, a priest in full regalia opened a small hatch as soon as the airplane began its climb. As the airplane climbed away from the reservoir, the priest chanted some blessings and did a few other things. Then he slammed the hatch shut and gave a thumbs up to a crewman, who yelled: “We’re good for another run!” into the intercom.

The Slayer and her warriors watched as the first airplane laid down a lane of water just in front of the retreating vampires. The front ranks skidded to a halt, afraid to try and run across the sodden and now consecrated ground. They were nicely bunched up when the second airplane dropped its load right on them.

“Let’s go, there’s some mopping up to do,” the Slayer said. She led her troops down from their redoubt and into combat. Overhead, the water bombers made some more passes, but now they were as much putting out spot fires caused by burning vampires as they were killing the undead.

There wasn’t much for the troops to do. The vampires who hadn’t been killed outright by being soaked with holy water had taken enough of the spray to be debilitated. It wasn’t so much combat as slaying the wounded. One of the wounded was Locutus, the vampire commander. His legs were gone at about mid-thigh and one of his hands had been burned off.

Locutus tried to straighten up as he said: “You think you have won this time, Slayer, but--” He disappeared in a shower of dust as a wooden arrow ran through his blackened heart.

The Slayer lowered her bow: “I have no time for famous last words,” she said to the dissipating cloud of dust.

One of her warriors trotted up and said: “I think we got them all, Boss.”

The Slayer nodded. “Well, you asked for a miracle,” she said.